Hoffman Park

Recycle Your Trash!

Photo by Daniel Avila

Garbage cans are aplenty in our public parks and now, under a 3-month pilot program by the Department of Sanitation, New Yorkers can recycle their trash in select parks.

Last week, the public space recycling pilot program was announced at the Saint George Staten Island Ferry Terminal. In attendance were Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor for Administration Edward Skyler, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Council Member Michael McMahon, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, and David Hurd, Director of the new Office for Recycling Outreach and Education.

The program will target busy commercial streets, parks, and transportation facilities where significant amounts of recyclable materials, such as paper, plastic, and glass, are being deposited in trash receptacles and entering the waste stream. For the next three months, Sanitation will partner with Parks and Transportation to provide recycling receptacles for bottles and cans, as well as for paper, at key locations. These include parks in all five boroughs and both Staten Island Ferry Terminals. Sanitation hopes to expand the pilot, one of the many new initiatives created by the historic Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) adopted last year, to additional locations this summer.

During the pilot, which officially began yesterday, blue and green recycling bins will be placed in and around the Whitehall and Saint George Staten Island Ferry terminals, as well as Poe Park in the Bronx, Columbus Park in Brooklyn, Union Square Park in Manhattan, Hoffman Park in Queens, and Tappen Park and Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island. The blue receptacles will collect bottles and cans and the green receptacles will collect paper. Upon collection, the materials, in addition to being recycled, will be used in a waste characterization study that will determine the effectiveness of the program.

"Last summer, after years of discussion and debate, we adopted a comprehensive, long term plan to deal with our City’s solid waste, and one of the plan's biggest and most important goals was an ambitious expansion of our recycling programs," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Today, we are acting on our commitment to pursue new, innovative initiatives and enhance our recycling efforts. If this pilot program is successful, we hope to expand it to other parts of our City and raise our public space recycling to unprecedented levels. If all of us do our small part, we can make a big difference for our City."

"New Yorkers can act locally to make a 'greener' city by recycling in their local parks, starting with this pilot project," said Commissioner Benepe. "The six parks chosen for this program are important public spaces and offer an excellent opportunity for New Yorkers to continue the practice of recycling outside of their homes and offices. We look forward to working with the Department of Sanitation and Department of Transportation to implement this exciting initiative."